The city is growing quickly and is literally buzzing as a result of the millions (yes, millions) of motorbikes on the road.
While Mike marveled at the efficiency of the bikes, Alexis immediately noticed two major differences since her 2011 visit:
1. Our luggage arrived on our flight!
2. (Most) people wear helmets on motorbikes
We quickly discovered eating is one of the cities main attractions, and were happy to get on board, especially with the majority of dishes ranging from $3-5. We spent our evenings sitting outside in what Mike described as a "mini Times Square," due the flashing lights and the number of tourists, which in turn attracted numerous street vendors.
Time flies by when you can drink good quality beer for less than $1 and eat incredible food.
We continued to explore the food scene with a trip to a cooking school about an hour outside the city center.
The cooking school is at the city's first organic farm, and we were the only students that day (which is amazing, considering we heard there can be over 20 people per day during the peak season!).
As we toured the farm, the chef was initially quite impressed with a few of Alexis's early guesses on random facts such as mushroom growth rates, the shelf life of a bottle of fish sauce, and the age of a calf (seen below - any guesses?).
We picked all of the vegetables and herbs we would be using that day.
Eventually, Mike turned into the teacher's pet with his impressive knife and spring roll skills.
Those are actually banana spring rolls (amazing!), which were dessert, but here was the rest of the day's menu:
While we have tried not to include food pictures, we have made an executive decision that pictures of food we cook is ok - at the very least, they may occassionally warrant a good laugh. For examples, the wontons we made.
We swear they tasted better than they looked! But don't expect them on any future dinner party menus. Now, the papaya salad with BBQ pork...
...that may be in your future.
We had a fantastic time, and although we have cooking classes scheduled in future cities throughout SE Asia, this first one is going to be tough to top.
Chef Tan was a total lunatic - in the best possible way. A quick note he sent to us after our class:
While Mike is quite proud of this praise, Alexis is perfectly happy with this arrangement.
Following the cooking course, we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, the underground network used by guerillas during the Vietnam War (or the American War as it's known here). While it was a bit uncomfortable hearing all the praise for the "American Killer Heroes" and watching others take photos of the vast array of traps that were used to capture and kill American troops, it's hard to deny the ingenuity of the fighters in a war where they were vastly out-armed. It was certainly a tough and challenging experience for us, but gaining a broader prospective was one of our goals for the trip.
Mike's claustrophobia (news to Alexis) came out in full force when we went down into the tunnels. We were given the option of "walking / crawling" between 20 and 150 meters. After approximately 2 seconds underground in the dark Mike exclaimed "I'm done" and got out at the first exit. Despite the drama, the only noticeable damage when we got out was his fully sweated-through t-shirt (he claims it was simply the humidity - we were in the jungle after all!).
Dipping back into our European tourist playbook, we joined a free walking tour. Given the sheer number of motorbikes and general lack of traffic rules, leading a group of 20 around the city is a pretty impressive undertaking, but everyone was accounted for at the end of the trip and were able to see some of the top sites in the city, including Saigon's own Notre Dame:
The French-style opera house, which we learned has served many different purposes over time:
The memorial to commemorate Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who famously lit himself on fire in protest to religous inequality in South Vietnam:
And finally, the one thing we can't escape in just about every city we've been in so far:
I guess it's a thing like Irish bars? And no, we did not go there.
From Ho Chi Minh we're head to Phu Quoc, a small island off the southeast coast of Vietnam for a few days of relaxation on the beach.
P.S. The calf was only a week old!
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